Christmas for the insurance companies

Nate Beeler on the corporatist deal cut on the Senate version of health care reform:

I’d have put Harry Reid in Obama’s place, but the point is well-taken: Big Business sells out to support Big Government’s policies in return for guaranteed profits, in this case the individual mandate that requires persons to buy a private insurance policy whether they want it or not. They’re not owned by the government, but they are an arm of it, nonetheless. It’s the fascist bargain.

And, no, I’m not calling Obama or Reid jackbooted fascists. But the progressive policies they’re pursuing are part of an ideological continuum on the Left that runs from a relatively mild Progressivism through Fascist and Communist totalitarianism, all of which subordinates the individual to the State and assumes that the State is the arbiter of the public good. Theirs is a fascism with a smile and a warm hug, not goosesteps and truncheons. In short, it’s a liberal fascism.